This story is a piece created for the Korean Story Contest, an annual event organized by the Content Development Agency. The screenplay was written after months of wrestling with deep thoughts, a last-ditch effort that the writer hoped would save his crumbling career.
"I've decided to quit the film industry, so what's the point of all this? Just delete it!" he muttered to himself in a tone filled with despair.
He intended to delete the file without a shred of regret. But something held him back. As his finger hovered over the delete button, doubt crept into his mind.
'What a waste. Damn it! Such a shame…'
In the end, Ryu Ji-ho pressed the delete button, his emotions swirling in a tempest, and then reluctantly shut his laptop.
'Gosh... It's so cold,' he complained.
Ryu Ji-ho shivered uncontrollably. He wrapped himself in a thick blanket, seeking some semblance of warmth. Despite wearing warm underwear and a heavy jacket, the biting cold still seeped through, making it impossible for him to find any comfort. He tossed and turned restlessly throughout the night, desperately searching for a hint of coziness that eluded him. Eventually, he drifted off into a restless slumber, enveloped in an eerie silence.
Did he realize it all too late?
The next day, Ryu Ji-ho was found by the 119 emergency medical team, frozen to death. He had fallen asleep wrapped in his blanket in the frigid basement room without any heating, just as a sudden cold wave swept through.
❉ ❉ ❉
"Where am I?" Ryu Ji-ho mumbled, bewildered.
He found himself seated in the middle row of a vast theater. The architecture was intricate and unfamiliar as if it belonged to a realm beyond this world. The building seemed dozens of times larger than the Superplex Theater at World Tower, which was touted as the biggest in Korea. Yet, calling this place merely "big" didn't do it justice—it was truly colossal. The screen in front, whether Cinerama or IMAX, was showing a film he didn't recognize.
"Huh huh huh…"
Suddenly, he heard someone sobbing. Instinctively, he turned toward the sound. A woman was sitting next to him, her shoulders shaking as she wept.
'Why is she crying? Is the movie sad?' Ryu Ji-ho wondered, redirecting his gaze back to the screen.
But what he saw on the screen startled him beyond belief.
"What the...?" he exclaimed.
The screen showed a scene of emergency responders dealing with a frozen corpse. The face of the body, iced over by the brutal cold, was unmistakably his own.
"That... that's me!" Ryu Ji-ho shouted, unable to believe his eyes.
Ryu Ji-ho quickly scanned the crowded theater, his eyes darting from one audience member to another, taking in their varied reactions. Some people were glaring furiously at the screen, while others gripped their hair, faces contorted in agony. A few were openly sobbing, their shoulders shaking with each gasp for air.
"...Excuse me?"
Ryu Ji-ho reached out and touched the arm of a woman seated next to him, who was weeping into her hands.
"...?"
His fingers passed right through her body, as if he were trying to grasp a mirage.
'Is this the afterlife?' Ryu Ji-ho wondered, struggling to make sense of his situation. 'Is the King of the Underworld showing me a movie of my past life?'
With nothing else to do, Ryu Ji-ho sat back, letting confusion wash over him. There was no other option but to focus on the screen displaying the film in front of him. The scene shifted, showing Ryu Ji-ho being rushed into a hospital.
"Uwaaah!"
The woman next to him let out a gut-wrenching scream.
'Why are they so sad or angry about my death?' Ryu Ji-ho thought, puzzled by the intense reactions of these strangers to his demise. He observed the audience's faces more closely. Yet, oddly enough, their reactions didn't seem to match the scenes playing out before his eyes.
'No, they're not watching my life story.'
It soon became clear that each person was watching a film that depicted the journey of their own life. At that moment, the scene on the screen shifted again, this time showing Ryu Ji-ho's funeral. An elderly woman, weakened by a stroke, wept hysterically, while his younger brother stood beside the coffin with a vacant expression. Some of Ryu Ji-ho's high school friends sat in a lonely corner of the funeral hall, silently drinking soju, while his younger sister indifferently served side dishes. The old woman eventually fainted, her cries having reached a frenzied peak. The sudden, tragic nature of Ryu Ji-ho's death was painful enough, but now he had to witness the suffering of those he had left behind.
'What kind of cruel being would show me such things?'
Ryu Ji-ho started to suspect that he hadn't been summoned by a god, but rather dragged here by a demon. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he stared blankly at the screen.
"Huhuhuhu..."
Regret, guilt, and disappointment filled him. Ryu Ji-ho wept uncontrollably. When the scene at the funeral hall ended, the film also came to a close. As the end credits began to roll, the people around him shifted uneasily in their seats. Ryu Ji-ho glanced around and saw a few clapping weakly, while others sank deeper into despair. One by one, the audience members began to disappear, fading away like shadows. In the end, only Ryu Ji-ho was left in the vast, empty room.
"Damn it!"
Ryu Ji-ho cursed, his emotions a tangled mess. The names scrolling up the screen were those of people who had been a part of his life over the past fifty years. Some names felt familiar, tugging at his memory, while others seemed completely alien. Suddenly, the credits stopped rolling. A thirty-second bonus scene appeared on the screen.
[A man stood by the window of a skyscraper, gazing out at the concrete jungle below. He appeared to be in his early forties, exuding an air of natural nobility. Dressed in an expensive suit, the man had just turned his head]
The screen went black once more. The interrupted credits resumed their upward march. Ryu Ji-ho didn't have time to ponder the meaning of this additional scene.
'I am nothing but a supporting character in a script written by the gods.'
Ryu Ji-ho felt like he was merely a side character who highlighted someone else's success, a secondary actor whose role was to make the protagonist shine brighter, a background figure who made no impact on the grand narrative called history. He was less than a daily laborer, just an extra in the grand play.
'If only I could write my own life story and direct it however I wanted.'
The thought felt pointless. Yet all he could do was wish that the gods would show him some mercy, granting him another chance. Ryu Ji-ho bowed his head, clasped his hands together as if in prayer, and whispered longingly.
'Let my life be my own story...'
Suddenly, the screen turned a blinding white. The light began to radiate from the screen, spilling out into the rows of seats. Random sections of the auditorium were chosen by the light, wrapping some of the chairs in a dazzling glow.
Ryu Ji-ho's eyes trembled slightly. The light, gathering into a single beam, emitted a powerful brilliance that flooded his retinas, almost blinding him.
"Swoosh!"
The blinding light finally engulfed Ryu Ji-ho completely. After he disappeared, the vast theater was enveloped in silence, waiting patiently for the next film to begin.